Glocer explains why today’s graduates are uniquely positioned to succeed.

Tom Glocer: Today's college graduates enter the workforce with an incredible advantage.  They have learnt to collaborate in person, via social networks and a variety of software tools in a way in which the digital immigrant generation, the people who exist already in the workforce never learnt how to do.  They are I feel more authentic, more in touch with what they really want. Before even joining the workforce they've rejected the sort of bland I'm never going to be the man in the gray suit and not in a total rejection of work.  It's I want to be—I want stimulating work.  I want to work with the sort of people I hung out with in college.  I want it to be just as interesting and I want to learn and better myself and that's a huge advantage. Don't forget about that.  Bring that to work every day, inspire the people around you.  Find a senior manager who reminds you of your absolutely favorite professor in college and figure out can you help.  Is there some additional assignment that you can do?  Does something need to get done?  Or just go out and find something and say hey I did this, it's a two-page paper, take a look, it's a prototype, what do you think?

The best advice I can give is to think about who are the people that really impressed me, what was I looking for.  Did the person really impress me by their initiative, not that they're constantly brown nosing and in your face, but that they're curious, that they're eager, that they've chosen a company because they care about the field, they want to better themselves.  It's not just sort of hey this is a job, I don't really care, my real life is playing music after work, which is cool and there is nothing wrong with that.  It's just I'm not going to hire you to work in my office.

So what I always think about is, is this somebody with real initiative.  I love an employee who if I say please do these five things goes away, comes back and does the following.  They've done three of the five things exactly as I've asked for. They're perfect.  The fourth thing she says to me, "I've done it your way Tom and this is what it looks like, but I actually think it should have been this way, so I've done it that way too.  The fifth thing you asked me to do you didn't really think that through.  It's sort of dumb.  I'll do it if you want me to, but I de-prioritized it and by the way, with the extra time I did these three other things, which I think you should have asked me because I think I understand what you're trying to achieve, but you probably thought I was too busy or whatever.  You're being nice, so you didn't.  So here are the eight things I've done and what would you like me to do next?" 

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd